The Malakoff Redoubt was a mighty keep, 380 yards long, and 160 wide; the ditch was upwards of six yards deep and seven wide, and its slope next to the work was very steep. In the interior were, first, the ground floor of the old stone tower, and then a multitude of traverses, huge ramparts of earth and timber designed to minimise the effect of shell fire. It was a closed work, that is, fortified on all sides, with one narrow opening in the rear, so that when once the assailants mastered the interior and closed the gorge the vast ramparts were defences for and not against them. This brief description will enable the reader to form some notion of the difficulties in the way of the stormers, and of the advantages which told in their favour when they had subdued the garrison. The Little Redan was also a closed work, but the long curtain connecting it with the Malakoff was exposed to the fire of the Russian second line, thrown up about 300 yards in the rear. The Great Redan was an open work, like a very straddling V, and its flanks were well supplied with traverses. The old trace of the entrenchment, as it existed in 1854, formed a sort of low retrenchment at the open end, in no sense formidable except as affording cover behind which infantry could rally. Here, it will be observed, the disadvantages were on the side of the assailants. Although the defenders might not be able to keep their foes out, in all probability they could prevent them from remaining in, unless they entered in overwhelming numbers, and succeeded in closing the rear against the attacks of the expelled enemy. In order to make the separate scenes of the 8th of September clear, it will be necessary to treat them separately, trusting the reader to remember that several actions were fought simultaneously.
The leading troops of MacMahon's division were the 1st Zouaves and the 7th of the Line. The Zouaves darted out on the right, and the Linesmen on the left. The heads of the columns reached the deep ditch together, leapt into it without waiting for ladders, swarmed up the opposing bank, and climbing, some over the parapet, some through the embrasures, jumped into the midst of the astonished Russians. In a short space half the force of the two regiments was in the work; but the engineers had thrown a ladder bridge so swiftly over the ditch that the rear companies of the 7th were able to cross it. At the same time four companies of Chasseurs had crossed the ditch, and entering the work at its point of junction with the Gervais Battery, drove its defenders out at the point of the bayonet, and made good their hold upon the battery. The Zouaves and the Linesmen in the Malakoff had attacked with such impetuosity and in such numbers that the Russians were obliged to fight in disorder, about the base of the old White Tower. But Frenchmen rushed in on all sides. There was a brief and bloody combat. Assailed in front, turned on both flanks, unable to retreat, above a hundred Russians ran into the lower storey of the old tower, and began to fire through the loopholes. By this time the Zouaves and the 7th had driven the enemy completely out of the space round the tower. Quickly rallying, the Russians collected behind the first huge line of traverses, and, in spite of the efforts of the French, held for awhile their ground. Foot by foot the French had gained upon them. They dashed at the openings, they wound in and out around the flanks, they crept along the parapets, and just as Vinoy's brigade was entering the work in support of Decaen, the latter's men had succeeded in forcing the enemy to seek shelter behind the second great line crossing the Malakoff at its widest part. Here the Russians rallied stronger than ever. They were plainly gathering for a rush. Hundreds had fallen on both sides, but the fury of the combat did not abate. The great French flag floated in the smoke and dust over the tower, but the Malakoff was yet to win. Until the gorge was gained and closed nothing was gained. So thought MacMahon. Vinoy was bursting in to his aid, but he determined to be secure, so he sent one of his staff for part of the Imperial Guard and Wimpfen's reserve. Before these could arrive, Vinoy, a prompt and gallant soldier, had led his men into the work and made use of them with striking skill. He had thrown the bulk of his force on the right of the assailants. With the 20th he supported the right of the Zouaves, and with the 27th, by a most soldier-like movement, he turned the Russian left. Paralysed by this rapid manœuvre, executed with unfaltering impetuosity, as soon as he saw the 27th in the rear of his left, and rapidly approaching the gorge, the enemy quitted his hold of the great line of traverses, and made for the sole exit from the redoubt. The French burst through like a flood. The more daring of the enemy turned several times, and spent their strength in brave but useless charges. Though they were swept along by the torrent of foes which streamed upon them, they made a brilliant resistance; and it was only when they felt that the 27th of the Line, so skilfully led, so relentlessly bent on gaining the gorge, would soon reach it, that they rushed out of the work. MacMahon and Vinoy swooped upon their prize, closed the gorge, and forbade all return.
THE STRUGGLE IN THE REDAN. (See p. [126].)
During this time the French on the extreme right had fought with great bravery but adverse fortune. The parallels of approach had been pushed up close to the Little Redan, and the heads of the columns of attack were close under the work; Dulac's leading brigade, therefore, had at the appointed hour started like the rest and had at once seized the Little Redan. Somewhat later in point of time, because the distance to be overcome was greater, General La Motterouge had sent his first brigade under Bourbaki against the curtain. Here again the French succeeded. The whole line from the Malakoff to the Little Redan was in their hands. Eager to take advantage of this burst of success, the leading brigades, as soon as the supports were well up, dashed forward. Bourbaki led his men against the second line, while St. Pol, issuing from the Little Redan, sought to turn the line at its point of intersection with the rear defences of the latter work. But the Russians were now fully alive. The batteries on the north side opened on the assailants. Three war-steamers ran up to the mouth of the Careening Bay, and poured in broadside after broadside. Field guns were promptly brought up to the second line, and used to hurl forth showers of desolating grapeshot. The Russian reserves came up, and charging the disordered columns of the French, forced them violently back—Bourbaki, as far as, and over, the curtain; St. Pol into the Little Redan. So prompt and vigorous was this counter-stroke, so deadly was the fire of the steamers, that St. Pol could not keep his hold even of the Little Redan. He was driven out, and the French, with difficulty, ensconced themselves on their own side of the curtain and in its ditch. The attempts to recover these positions were unsuccessful. Similarly on the extreme right they failed to carry the Central Bastion.
The afternoon was wearing away. The British attack on the Great Redan, which we shall presently describe, had failed. The guns on the left face of this work were shooting down the French on the slopes of the Malakoff. General Chruleff had tried by three desperate charges to break into the gorge of the key of the place, and tear away from MacMahon his blood-stained prize. But the defence was too strong. The Russians only dashed up to the gorge and tried to pull down the gabions that closed it, or endeavoured to scramble up the ramparts, to meet death from the crushing musketry fire that blazed from the parapets. A huge column had emerged from the houses, and for a moment seemed resolved to sweep the gallant Chasseurs out of the Gervais Battery. Suddenly the massive column was rent by round shot and disordered by shell, and struck in flank by musketry. The British gunners in the Quarry Battery had caught sight of this column, and in an instant had trained and fired their pieces. Finding only five guns bore upon the enemy, they tore down the sides of the other embrasures, and brought promptly seven into action. That was the source of the torrent of shot and shell. The streams of musketry rolled from the western flank of the Malakoff, and from the Chasseurs in the Gervais Battery. The column broke up under this fire and fled to the rear. Prince Gortschakoff had arrived from the north side, and scanning the Malakoff, saw that life would be vainly wasted in further attempts to retake it. He therefore forbade them; but he ordered his generals to resist to the last on the other points.
It is now time to narrate the attack of the British on the Redan. There were in and near the work, and specially appointed to defend it, no less than, at the lowest computation, 12,000 men, exclusive of a great reserve. Against these we were about to send not altogether, stormers and supports, more than one-fourth of the number. This handful of men were expected to take and hold an open work defended by thirty-two battalions of Russian infantry. The men did not hesitate. In a few minutes the salient was won. The Light Division column had stormed in at the apex, the Second Division column had been led to the right, and had entered the work on its proper left face, some yards from the salient. Now the crisis of the combat arrived. Driven back by the impetuous charge of the British, the Russians in the salient, and on each flank ran to the rear, and collected behind the breastwork, up to which they speedily brought field artillery. The handful of British who had got in did not, unhappily, even attempt to carry the breastwork by a rush. The British soldier is a creature of habit, and he instinctively fell into his old ways. Instead of storming on, he extended himself on parapet or traverse, and began to fire. The officers saw how fatal this would prove, and tried to get the men out from cover, and to form them for a rush. In this work Colonel Windham and others were conspicuous. But it availed nothing. During this musketry combat weak supports, in disarray, arrived from the British trenches; but the Russians had now gathered in immense force. Pauloff, who commanded here, had called up about 8,000 men. Throwing these into the fight as they came up, he sent some along the flanks, while he kept a strong line, aided by field guns, behind the breastwork, and from that point directed a converging fire into the salient. Considering his numbers, the Russian general was singularly slow in his movements. But by degrees, and by sheer weight of men, his masses pressed the British closer and closer. These, firing with all their might, soon exhausted their stock of ammunition, and were forced to use stones. Then the supports from the trenches, on reaching the salient, imitated the example of their precursors and fired until their store was gone. Colonel Windham sent three officers to beg for troops in formation. Not one reached General Codrington. This officer was perplexed and irresolute, and at length Windham arrived himself to demand a well-formed support. It was too late, assuming that such a support could have reached the Redan and have expelled its numerous garrison. Just after Windham had quitted the work on this errand, Pauloff grew emboldened by his numbers, and pressing down upon the salient, closed with the British soldiers still holding on. A short and terrible combat ensued at close quarters. Our men were unwilling to surrender the little space they had so dearly won; but the pressure of fire and steel was irresistible. The remnant of the stormers was forced over the parapet, but not away from it. There, on our side, they still hung, and were fed from the trenches by sections of men who had survived the path of fire by which alone they could reach the enemy. But this could not last long. At length the enemy made a mighty effort, and swept every British soldier from the parapet into the ditch. Those who were able to scramble up had to run the gauntlet of a fire of grape and musketry on their return to the trenches, whither they arrived breathless, bleeding, exhausted. The Russians cheered, manned their parapets, fired into the chaos of human beings weltering in heaps in the ditch, and even brought up two field-pieces, and with grape from these pursued the fugitives. For this they paid a heavy penalty. Our batteries instantly opened a deadly fire on the Redan, crushing the field-pieces at once, and smashing the masses of infantry whose numbers choked the work. But the enemy had gained his point, and had worsted the victors of the Alma and Inkermann.
LORD RAGLAN VIEWING THE STORMING OF THE REDAN AT THE SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
FROM THE PAINTING BY R. CATON WOODVILLE.